Welcome to My-Image-Host.com – Free Image Hosting, a great free photo hosting and image sharing website. You can upload, share and browse your images online, anywhere and anytime. Using My-Image-Host is the simplest way to share your images online. 3 easy steps you need to take: choose your file, upload, and then share. You can upload in our servers and share with your friends all kind of images, personal photos, wallpapers, banners. Almost every type of images formats can be stored : JPEG, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, .ICO, and .BMP also.

We will generate for you several types of links to the image and images’ thumbnails that you have stored in our servers including a direct link which makes it perfect to publish the photo anywhere (websites, blogs, forums, social media sites, emails, auction websites like eBay). You don’t have to register in our site to be able to upload but the FREE registration gives you some benefits :

- you can upload bigger images (up to 25 MB/image),

- you can create unlimited picture galleries, and sort your pictures into galleries.

- you can track your photos and know how many views did it get

- you can rate other members pictures.

- you can upload 10 images in the same time !

Almost every internet user have heard about forums, or use one. According to wikipedia, an Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site.  People participating in an Internet forum can build bonds with each other and interest groups will easily form around a topic’s discussion, subjects dealt with in or around sections in the forum.

Now, when using a forum, in different discussions, almost anytime you need to share different images, photos, personal pictures with the other users of that forum. In this post we’ll give a very short explanation of how you can insert a picture into a forum post.

Step 1

Upload your image into My-Image-Host.com. Select “Browse” to find the image you want to upload. Select an image and press “OK” or “Open“. You can select up to 10 images to host in the same time for free with My-Image-Host.com. When you are done selectin your pictures that you want to upload, press the “Start Uploading” button. Depending of your image / images size, and your internet upload connection, the time of the upload can vary. After your image is uploaded, you will see a number number of boxes with generated linking codes for your uploaded image.

How To Upload Images into My-Image-Host.com :

Step 2

Choose the right linking code for you.

- If you want to post that image on a forum, choose the “Hotlink for Forums” code.

- If you want to use that image on a website, choose the “Hotlink for Websites” code.

- If you want to place on that forum or website only a small thumbnail of that image, that you need to go to the bigger picture, just select “Thumbnail for Forums” or “Thumbnail for Websites” code version.

Click on the code, an press “Ctrl+C” on your keyboard, or right-click on your mouse, and choose “Copy“.

How to select my linking code ? :

Step 3

Go to the forum where you want to post that image / images.

Create / Open / Edit a post where you need to place your image.  Then paste the code by pressing the “Ctrl+V” on your keyboard or by clicking on your right mouse button, and then choose “Paste“.

How to paste my linking code into a forum post:

And… you’re DONE. Just save the post. Voila ! Simple as 1-2-3.

So… go and Upload your images.

We, at My-Image-Host.com Blog, decided to follow the “U Comment I Follow” movement campaign among the bloggers. We think this would be fair, as our readers spend their time to read our blog and comment our posts, to give something in return, a dofollow backlink.

So, we’ve installed the DoFollow plugin for Wordpress, but also, keep in mind that we also installed the Askimet plugin also, so spammers… beware !

Short explanation:

According to Wikipedia, nofollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct some search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index. It is intended to reduce the effectiveness of certain types of search engine spam, thereby improving the quality of search engine results and preventing spamdexing from occurring.

By default, the Wordpress installation marks all comment links with the rel=’nofollow’ tag. The effect of this tag is that search engine spiders such as GoogleBot will not follow the link to your site, thus the only effect of the comment is if a human follows the link.

Now… if you have a do-follow blog.. what do you need ? Simple… a “U Comment I Follow” Icon, or also known as “Badge”

We’ve created a big collection of “U Comment I Follow” Badges , and place all together in a single big “You Comment I Follow” badges gallery, so feel free to browse the gallery and choose whatever icon you like.

Note: Those are only 26 of 100 badges. Click here and go to the whole gallery:  100 “You Comment I Follow” badges.

Attention 1 : Those are only 26 of 100 badges. Click here and go to the whole gallery:  100 “You Comment I Follow” badges.

Attention 2 : Those icons are not created by our staff. In respect for the creators of those badges, here are the blogs where we’ve found those badges:

Limeshot Blog

Wierd websites

wordpress 4 dummies

Chexed

Sometimes when you want to quick modify a picture, you will mostly think about an image editing software. And if the modifications needed to be made are no so advanced, you can always use the Paint program from Windows XP for doing simple drawings or edit your picture files. You can edit picture colors, crop / cut your images, draw different objects on them or add text into your images. Of course, if you need more sophisticated editing options, you need to use another more advanced image editor.

So, if you decided to edit your pictures into the Paint Program, in Win XP, just follow these steps to edit your images:

1) Choose Start → All Programs → Accessories → Paint.

2) When is opened, choose File → Open

3) Select the picture file you want to edit, and then click Open.

4) Edit the picture.

When you are working to develop a website / blog, you sometimes need to think about the image formats you use, because this could help for saving a lot of bandwidth costs, by making the right choose.

On the web today there are 3 main image format types to choose from and all have their advantages and disadvantages, minuses and pluses. You have a choice of three different compressed image formats: GIF, JPEG or PNG. They each use different techniques to compress the image information.

GIF

GIF uses a lossless compression method which means that no quality is lost in the compression.

The uncompressed image stores its information in a linear fashion. Each line of pixels is read from left to right. An interlaced GIF image file stores the lines of the image in a different order. First lines 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20 may be read in. Then lines 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 and so on until the whole image is recognized. With this type of interlaced GIF file, when a internet user with a slower internet connection tries to open the image file, he is able to read the image while this is loading.

The GIF format achieves its compression by removing repeated patterns within the GIF image file and keeping references to these sections in a list. Images with horizontal lines of the same color or pattern benefit most from the GIF format. A few examples are backgrunds, images containing text and other patterned images.

Creating animated images are another great advantage when using GIF. They are used in a vary numerous numbers on the internet, so you cannot noticed them. An animated GIF is basically a sequence of GIF files with some timing information included. But usually, animated GIFs can achieve large amount of size very quickly, with only a few number of frames. So, it’s better to use Macromedia Flash if you want to make animated files, instead of animated GIFs.

Another big advantage to GIF files is transparency. A color within the color table can be selected as the transparent color.

Unfortanatelly, one of the largest minuses to the GIF file format is the  inability to have a color palette larger than 256 colors.

JPEG

JPEG image format uses a lossy compression. This means that image quality is lost in the process of compressing the image. JPEG compression works by converting the image from RGB to YUV which stores information about each pixel using 3 parameters. Those 3 are : brightness, hue and saturation. Then it reduces the amount of information it stores for hue and saturation since differences are less noticeable to the human eye. JPG is best used for images that have more of a variation in colors. For example, images with gradients or photographs can handle a lower quality setting with little noticeable loss in quality. Images with text or large solid backgrounds are best left for GIF or PNG.

PNG

PNG image file format is a pretty new format in the list of available image formats and it is a “great to use” one. Its functions are almost similar to GIF advantages in many ways but even better in others. It is lossless like GIF format but supports 24 bit color (GIF supports only 8).

PNG supports alpha transparency, while GIF image format supports only a single color transparency. PNG uses various compression filters to minimize overall image size and can apply different filters on a per-line basis to achieve higher compression.

The big attraction to PNGs is its ability to do alpha transparency.

If you are not using alpha transparency or do not need more than 256 colors then you can export your imagefile as an 8-bit PNG. This could lead to a  smaller in file size than GIF with absolutely no difference in image quality.  If you do not need alpha transparency but wish to use a color palette greater than 256 colors then you should use a 24-bit PNG.

So… is there a winner?

No image file format is best in all scenarios, and no image file format have all the advantages. So, it’s always recommended to know what you want to achieve with your file, and always test your options , using various formats and compression levels to achieve the best results.

If you want to learn more on the history or other and deeper explanations of these image formats, read about GIF , JPEG , and PNG on Wikipedia, and also read about image formats, here in this post.

This is the first article in our blog about images. That’s why we decided to talk talk a little about the image types. If you are an experienced user you may know all those, but if you are a novice in computers, you may noticed that you can find several image formats out there. The most common are JPEG (JPG), GIF, BMP, PNG, TIFF, WMF, PCS, ICO and many, many others. Those listed previosly are the most used ones.

Let’s take each one and talk about the most used image files formats a little bit.

- JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)

Format name: JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group)
Extension: jpg, jpeg, jfif,jfl
Type: bitmapped
Compression algorithm: JPEG (lossy)
Color depth: 24 bits
Platforms: all
Jpeg (or Jpg) format was first created to transfer graphic data and images via digital telecommunication networking and was generally used to keep and transfer full color photo realistic images. Before Jpeg, there were very few image formats, which supported 24 bit halftone images. TIFF and BMP formats allowed holding 24 bit data, but those weren’t able to perform a  data compression without loss, which contained thousand and thousand  colors from the real world, on the high quality level.

Jpg format can compresses images though with some quality loss. Compression algorithm is that data are deleted for de-allocation (this means it allows to raise the degree of the compression). Pixel data are hold as pixel block in a certain color with intensity information save.

Pictures and multi-color images, transferred in this JPEG format, are ideal for internet use. Jpeg format is primarily used to have graphic images with a large number of colors.

Compressed data capacity in JPEG image files depends on image contents. Compression degree may come up to 25:1 , and this without visible loss in quality.

Jpeg supports “Progressive Jpeg standard”, which is very similar to interlaced in Gif format. In this way, Jpeg Progressive format images are loaded by parts, which are displayed, as they are loaded. Such Progressive format is very useful for large files. But this is a pretty new starndard, and  some programs may not support it.

- GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)

Format name: GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
Extension: gif
Type: bitmapped
Compression algorithm: LZW (lossless)
Color depth: up to 8 bits
Platforms: all
Versions: gif87 and gif89
Released in: 1987

Gif picture file format is used to hold and transfer images in index color mode (maximum 256). GIF image format also supports a LZW compression algorithm (a single file may contain a set of images) and also interlaced image load.

The GIF format was updated in 1989, and named gif89. It supports an additional channel to perform a transparency effect and to keep a set of images in a single file .

In these days, GIF format is one of the most popular and used graphic files formats. Though it not suited to keep a photo-realistic images, beacause this kind of format cannot contain more than 256 colors.

Gif format, unlike Jpeg format, use a loss-less compression algorithm. That means that while compression/decompression bits are not deleted. Gif uses a patent compression /decompression algorithm, which is called LZW (Lempel Zev Welch).

- Bitmap (Microsoft Windows Bitmap)

Format name: Bitmap (Microsoft Windows Bitmap)
Extension: bmp, dib, rle
Type: bitmapped
Compression algorithm: RLE (lossless), without compression
Color depth: up to 32 bits
Platforms: Windows, OS/2

Bitmap is a Windows raster format, which is used practically for all possible raster data storage.
All BMP versions were designed for computers with Intel processors. The current format version is device independable (that means that Bitmap determines the pixel’s color without reference to display device) and makes possible to record images of a different quality level (to the point of 32 bits).

The main advantage of the BMP file format is its usability and wide software support.

- PNG (Portable Network Graphic)

Format name: PNG (Portable Network Graphic)
Extension: png
Type: bitmapped
Compression algorithm: Deflate (lossless)
Color depth: up to 48 bits
Platforms: all

Png file format is a a new progressive format originally designed to replace old dated Gif. PNG format has got a set of new features that GIF image format don’t have.

Png also performs a loss-less compression with the help of Deflate algorithm and supports interlaced mode. The format handles 256 transparency levels which means that images might be partially transparent. They won’t lose its quality while compressing and decompressing. The fact that the PNG supports color depth up to 48 bits and performs a loss-less compression, makes possible to hold photo-realistic images.

Png format is used specially for networking and internet use.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)

Format name: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format)
Extension: tif
Type: bitmapped
Compression algorithm: CCITT-RLE, CCITT-FAX3, CCITT-FAX4, LZW, OJPEG, JPEG, CCITT-RLEW, Packbits, Deflate
Color depth: up to 48 bits
Platforms: all
Released in: 1986

This image format was released in 1986 and was generally used to keep scanned black and white images.

Released in 1987, Tiff 4.0 got prevalence for it supported incompact color RGB images. In 1988 was released Tiff 5.0 format, which made possible to hold palette color images and support LZW compression algorithm. Released in 1992, Tiff 6.0, supported CMYK and YcbCr color images and Jpeg compression algorithm.

Finally, the current Tiff (Tiff 6.0) is a rich and flexible file format, supported by many software out there. The format is capable to record halftone images with different pixel intensity. So, TIFF format is considered to be a perfect format for graphic data storage and processing.

- PCX (PC Paintbrush File format)

Format name: PCX (PC Paintbrush File format)
Programmer: Zsoft
Extension: pcx
Type: bitmapped
Compression algorithm: RLE, without compression
Color depth: 1, 4, 8, 24 bits
Platforms: all

PCX format is one of the most usable graphic formats. Originally it was designed by Zsoft for MS-DOS Paintbrush. That is why, it is also known as PC Paintbrush format. Zsoft entered into a treaty with Microsoft. The latter was entitled to use PCX format with other products, including Microsoft Paintbrush for Windows (Microsoft Paintbrush program is delivered with each copy of MS Windows).

Originally the format was used to hold graphics and images, which contained not more than 16 colors. This limitation was conditioned by IBM EGA display construction (Enhanced Graphics). When IBM started to release VGA adapter (Virtual Graphics Array), PCX format was revised to hold graphics and images, which contained up to 256 colors.

The last PCX versions make possible to hold 24 bits color displays. Unfortunately, its compression algorithm is not effective enough to hold images with large pixel intensity.

Graphics data are encoded with the help of RLE algorithm. Using RLE, it is difficult to foresee the end, for compressing factor is highly depended on image data and on the number of colors, used in the concrete. Generally, image data, which contain not more than 16 colors, decrease by 40-70% as compared with the original file size. While 64 or 256 color images, which were scanned or videoed, decrease only by 10-30%. Sometimes you can increase PCX file size via using compression algorithm for complex images.